


of vultures and springtime

by RosaLeoa



Series: Reyna [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adopted Character, Adoption, Angst, Argentina, Argentinian Dictatorship, Bittersweet Ending, Catholic Character, Children, Drabble, F/M, Freedom Fighters, Heartbreaking, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Latina Jyn Erso, Latina Rey (Star Wars), Latino Cassian Andor, Latinx Character, Military Regimen, Orphaned Character, Star Wars Modern AU, The Empire is the US and the UK, illegal adoption, stolen children
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:34:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27920854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosaLeoa/pseuds/RosaLeoa
Summary: My personal Death Star is Operación Condor.Never forgive, never forget, never stop fighting for memory, truth, and justice.
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Rey, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Jyn Erso & Leia Organa, Jyn Erso & Rey, Leia Organa & Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Reyna [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044537
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	1. La Estrella de la Muerte

She spat in the officer's face when they captured her. It was dumb and she knew it before he even closed his fist that a punch was coming. But she also wanted to give Cassian time to get Reyna and run.

It was a cold winter day in June and Jyn had orders to transmit the truth to the people about the end of the war in the Malvinas [1]. Nevermind that they hadn't told their handler about Reyna, who had her first birthday party three days before. Nevermind that they shouldn't be involved. It was for Reyna they were fighting too, so she could grow up in a country without fear. It was for the memory of her dead grandparents and the friends she would never meet. Jyn would only stop when la Casa Rosada [2] were free of generals or she was dead.

Jimena was her actual name and she shouldn't know Cassian's, but this kind of caution is hard to keep up when you're polishing guns behind a huge pregnant belly. José António Andor.

They risked everything to take Reyna to a trusted priest and baptize her, even though she had been born out of wedlock. Cassian was a fake atheist and he couldn't shake off the fear that, if Reyna died un-baptized, she would wander forever in the limbo of lost souls. Reyna Maria Erso Andor was her full name, and Cassian spent money that should go to bullets and pamphlets to get her a golden medal of the Virgin to protect her.

That was what motivated Jyn to spit in the officer's face and what made her bear the gut punch he threw at her. That was what made her laugh when her radio started blasting messages of support from all over the world, signaling that people were aware of what was happening in Argentina. She could almost taste it: freedom.

"You've lost," she said, when she managed to finally breathe. "It's over, you've lost, hijos de puta."

The second blow was with a stick, but Jyn had been trained to support pain. She had been trained to laugh instead of cry and trained to know that she didn't had to bear all the torture to come, just that second. And then another second. And then one more. Focus on the present, focus on breathing, and do not think of Reyna. Do not think of Reyna or her boobs would start hurting and she would panic.

They cursed her and beat her before even putting her in cuffs. But she could do it. She had been trained for it. She was going to prove to her commander that he was wrong, women could be freedom fighters too. She had given birth to a child without the help of even a nurse, their punches were nothing.

That is, until she heard Cassian's screams and Reyna's cries. While Jyn was dragged screaming and kicking on the safe house's floor to the police car waiting for her outside she saw it: the priest who baptized her daughter was taking the baby to an unmarked car.

"Mamán!" Reyna screams were going to haunt Jyn until she drew her last breath.

"Mamán!"

There was no one left to look for her daughter. No one left to tell Reyna her true story.

"Mamán!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] From 2nd day of April to June 14th in 1982, Argentina and the UK were at war for the Malvinas Islands (the Brits call it "The Falklands"). It was a dumb war from both sides and crucial to the defeat of the military coup that ruled Argentina since 1976.
> 
> [2] The Argentinian presidential palace.
> 
> About the title. "Condor" is a huge bird from the South American mountains and it's a type of vulture. And the first Argentinian presidential elections after the dictatorship happened in October, spring. That's basically it. I wrote this drabble because I was tired of living with this headcanon in my head only. Maybe I'll write more of it, maybe not.


	2. Neverland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life in London

Rey looked nothing like her parents. Mum was tall and blonde, with elongated facial features. Papa was also tall and strong, with broad shoulders and a strong brow.

Rey had a round face, dark eyes, and a pointy nose no one had. When they went to the Côte d'Azur in the Summers, Mum and Papa would get very red and, in the next day, look just as pale as the day before. Rey's skin had infinite freckles and tanned in beautiful shades of golden. Mummy explained to her that her grandmother, Rey's great grandmother, was from the South of France and that was probably where she got her complexion from.

Papa would call her "Wendy" and dismiss her questions, saying nobody liked busybodies. Yes, she had been born in Buenos Aires, where Papa happened to be working back then, for his godfather, Mr. Palpatine. No, people don't get their physical traits from the countries where they were born. That's not how genetics worked.

Rey liked to pretend that she was a lost princess back then. Or that she was actually Wendy and one day, if she wished hard enough to the stars, Tinker Bell would come get her to live in Neverland. She would do that usually after waking up in the middle of the night, screaming and crying, calling for mamán. Mum didn't like when she called her like that, so Rey tried to stop, but it was too hard to control herself when she was so scared, so she just stopped screaming altogether and started looking through the window, trying to find some stars in the London night sky.

It's not that life was bad, she would realize later, no. Even if Mummy was drunk all the time and Papa barely stayed at home, Rey was always clothed and always fed. Rey had an Argentinian nanny that came with them when they were reallocated in 1983 back to London, and she would always make her homemade dulce de leche and empanadas. It was with her that Rey learned Spanish. That is, until Mum found out about it and fired Irene.

"You're British, Rey. We called you Reyna Maria just to please the priest that baptized you, but you're one of us, no matter that your birth certificate is in Spanish. Never forget."

Rey would think more of Neverland after the social worker came to get her. She had been alone for over a day and ate all the cookies in the tin can, even if Mummy disliked when she ate too many cookies. Even if it meant that she was going to be a fat girl. She was hungry, she was scared. Her parents had left to go shopping and Rey asked to sleep a little longer. They never came back.

The social worker tried to find any family members that could get Rey from foster care. There was no one, Rey knew it.

Rey was alone in their funeral, accompanied only by the social worker who kept repeating that her parents died without suffering in the car accident. Their old friends and co-workers appeared and talked to the social worker as if she wasn't there.

"What's to be made of the girl?"

"Have you tried contacting her mother's family in France?"

"If only I could take her in, but I already have three of my own."

"Poor thing, so young and all alone in the world."

That night, Rey stopped looking for stars. She already knew the sky was going to be black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Argentinian dictatorship was sponsored by many companies, in special, from the US and the UK. The CIA created a center of training in the ealy 20th century, in Panama, called "La Escuela de las Américas" where all torturers from the Latin American Armed Forces go to learn their trade and teach some local "inventions".  
> When the dictatorship ended, in 1983, the collaborators of the regimen who had money and connections fled the country.  
> Rey's story here is sadly based in many real similar ones. If anyone is interested in knowing more, I recommend looking for "Las Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo", an organization that looks for the children stolen during the dictatorship to this day. The Catholic Church worked as a mediator between the Armed Forces and the couples of "good families" who wanted to raise those children away from the "dangers of communism".  
> To this day, many babies still haven't been found.  
> We will never forgive, we will never forget.
> 
> (if you want to, follow me on Twitter! @ nerd_leoa)


	3. Usted preguntará por qué cantamos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Cantamos porque los sobrevivientes y nuestros muertos quieren que cantemos"

Rey was feeling numb. She knew she was sitting on Leia's couch in the living room and there was a photo album on her lap. She could see the DNA test opened on the small coffee table and the documents spread out with it. But she was numb. She wasn't there anymore.

She knew Leia for years. She could never imagine that the key to her past would be in that living room, spread over the coffee table where she so many times discussed business plans and chatted about life.

"They bought me," she eventually mustered to say.

For some weird reason, her brain decided to put a melody to the question endlessly circling her head: "Tell me why?" sounded like a scratched LP with the Backstreet Boys' hit, "I want it that way".

"Yes, Carl Sands, known as 'Cosinga' in the underbelly of their operation, bought you from the Church when you were a baby and gifted you to his wife, who could not get pregnant."

_ The underbelly of their operation _ … Rey touched the face of Cosinga's wife with her shaking fingers in a photo that showed nothing but a normal family. It was from her baptism, when they gave her the name of Reyna Maria Sand. She was in the woman's arms, dressed in white, with a small lace bonnet. The woman she remembered for all of her life with sorrow. Mum.

"And then, when I was two, they went with me to the U.K.," that part she remembered. A bit. "Why?"

"Since they were both British citizens, they got the papers to do the same for you. In 1983, the military regime in Argentina fell. They were afraid of being held accountable for their many, many crimes, Rey," Leia answered with the same calm voice she was using all day.

"Such as buying me." Rey didn't want to cry. But her eyes prickled with tears.

She had cried so many times at night in different foster houses calling for Miranda and Carl, mum and papa. From Argentina, she vaguely remembered photos of her running in a square with mum in front of La Casa Rosada, but this could be one of her many made up memories. Apparently, even if the memory was hers, it wouldn't be real anymore.

"Such as buying you."

Silence stretched between them. There was an unopened album on the table. One that Rey didn't want to touch.

"We have been searching for you for over twenty years, Rey..." Leia gently pushed a stranded lock of her hair away from Rey's face. "And to think..." Her voice broke. "And to think that finding you was what brought Ben back home too."

The weirdly-shaped birthmark in her inner thigh apparently was the only distinctive trait about her when she was a baby. But Ben -- lost Ben who had worked for Snoke for years, lost Ben who had been Rey's hate fuck for months now -- was the one who connected the dots of her past, her birthmark, and her looks. She had been working in the Resistance for years now and had a close friendship with Leia, but Leia didn't see. She didn't know. Leia had no idea who had bought the baby she was looking for and Rey had never thought she could have been adopted. She knew papa worked for Palpatine and she didn't talk about it with anyone besides Ben, out of shame. She had been carrying the pain of their victims with her for years now, unaware that she was actually one of them.

"Why you?" Rey asked her. "You're not even Argentinian." Neither was Carl.

The version Rey vaguely knew was that he was a businessman from the U.K. who moved to Argentina in the 1970s to expand his business. The version Leia had told her not five minutes ago was that he was a British operative and he was there for much darker purposes. Maybe moving back to the U.K. was also motivated by something like that.

"The Resistance, Rey, back then, was a little different from what it is today. My biological father worked with Mr. Palpatine in the CIA and helped him to do horrible things in the 1950s. My biological mother started this organization in the US as a way to fight their plans. I was raised by friends' of hers when she died in a suspicious car accident."

Leia sighed.

"But I am rambling. I knew your mother. Your real mother."

Rey felt her throat getting tight.

"Jimena Erso's life was in many ways similar to mine, with the significant difference that she grew up poor and going in and out of juvie. Her father was a U.S. citizen and he went to Argentina in the 1950s to work at what would be their local branch of the Operación Condor."

"Operation what?"

"Condor. Was a huge interventionist plan, which started being created in the 1940s, after World War II, when the countries in Latin America got economically closer to the old USSR. The U.S. political power was especially threatened after the Cuban Revolution, due to the wave of labor and leftist oriented governments being elected in South America and the huge influence Fidel and Che Guevara had back then. So the CIA orchestrated and backed up military coups in many countries during the 1960s and 1970s. We have official papers now, showing that the U.S. not only gave financial aid to the rising dictators to organize, but also created something called la Escola de las Américas, in Panama. That place has been a site of creation and improvement of torture, where police officers and members of armed forces from all over the world, to this day, are sent to learn how to effective break political oppositors and extract information from them. Operación Condor happened from 1968 to 1989 and it was a specific push for more coups and more bloodshed in South America."

Rey felt queasy with the sheer volume of information Leia had thrown in her lap in the time span of seconds. 

"My biological father, Anakin Skywalker, was an esteemed teacher in la Escola de las Américas. He was specialized in strangulation without marks and extracting information out of prisoners with a level of efficacy that his survivors describe the experience as having their mind read." Leia's voice was so firm. How was she so steady in talking about those things?

Torture? Interrogations? Rey knew nothing of this in her life. She thought she was ruthless, with her work in TI and how she never let any man steal her ideas and her coding. She knew nothing of the world.

"What… what happened to them?"

"Them?"

"My p… my biological parents. Jimena and..."

"José Antonio, aka Cassian."

Rey tried to say his name with no sounds.  _ José _ . The J scraped her throat like some unwanted truth about herself. Leia opened the album. It was a mess that someone, Leia, tried to make it look neat. There were few pictures of a small girl with the same stern look Rey had in her face when people didn't explain things to her properly; and some other pictures of a laughing boy playing with a cheap football, barefoot and without a shirt. Most of the stern girl's pictures were of her in a convent, surrounded by nuns and girls in uniforms, all with the same haircut. There were few pictures of her with a beautiful man, posing very stiff with his hand on her shoulder.

Rey had the same smile as the boy, the same dimples. He grew up poor, with several children always in the pictures with him. He sat in a school chair, his hair parted in the middle, his name in a small plaque in front of him, smiling with missing teeth for his school yearbook.

The girl changed uniforms. From the nuns, now she went clearly to the Argentinian version of juvie. The fire in her eyes got stronger. Rey knew this fire like she knew the freckles that adorned the stern girl's pointy nose. She had her cheekbones.

The boy had pictures in his First Communion, dressed in white, with his hair slicked all back, being hugged by his mother with a huge smile. Rey had the same hands as the woman in the picture. The boy grew up and went to dance competitions and finished school. He buzzed his hair off when he enlisted in the Army.

The girl was arrested. There was a mugshot of her. The boy defected in 1976. There was a "wanted" poster of him.

Jimena. José.

"They were captured, Rey, in the day you were kidnapped." Leia's voice brought Rey back to the present. "They are gone."

"What?" A sob escaped her throat.

She had been an orphan for most of her life, but not like this. Not like this. She grabbed the album that was resting on the table and embraced it. She could almost hear her father's laugh, her mother's voice. It was all blurred with Carl and Miranda, she needed to know them. The real ones. The ones who had lost her. She needed to go back to them.

"They are dead, Rey, since 1982."

A wet sound escaped Rey's throat. She remembered looking at the stars when she was little and waiting for someone to come and get her. No one. No one would come back. José, Jimena, the J sound echoing in the void inside of her. Stolen. She was stolen from them and all her life was stolen from her.

In another world, in another Galaxy, maybe she had grown up with laughter and empanadas. Knowing her mother's smell and her father's voice.

In that world, all she had was a mismatched collection of black and white pictures. Too little too late.

"Wh… Where are they buried?" She finally managed to ask. She could travel to Argentina, she could go to the streets once upon a time they walked and sang songs in. She could look for distant relatives and visit their graves, and take them flowers.

Leia stayed in silence again. Jimena's eyes stared at Rey from her "Wanted" picture.  _ Terrorista _ , said the flyer.

"We never could find their bodies, Rey. More than 30 thousand people had the same fate as them."

"What?!" She turned to look at Leia. Never finding their bodies.

She remembered the Greek mythology classes she had in school, of the lost souls wandering the margins of the Styx river, unable to pay Caronte and cross to their resting place. Her parents had their peace stolen from them. No real end. No closure, never.

No closure. Ever.

Rey crumbled on the couch and Leia hugged her, shushing against her hair. Maybe somewhere, in another Galaxy, they met again. Maybe somewhere, someday, someone… Someone could find the belonging Rey would never have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Por qué cantamos  
> -Mário Benedetti  
> .  
> Si cada hora viene con su muerte  
> Si el tiempo es una cueva de ladrones  
> Los aires ya no son los buenos aires  
> La vida es nada más que un blanco móvil  
> .  
> Usted preguntará por qué cantamos  
> .  
> Si nuestros bravos quedan sin abrazo  
> La patria se nos muere de tristeza  
> Y el corazón del hombre se hace añicos  
> Antes aún que explote la vergüenza  
> .  
> Usted preguntará por qué cantamos  
> .  
> Si estamos lejos como un horizonte  
> Si allá quedaron árboles y cielo  
> Si cada noche es siempre alguna ausencia  
> Y cada despertar un desencuentro  
> .  
> Usted preguntará por qué cantamos  
> .  
> Cantamos porque el río está sonando  
> Y cuando suena el río, suena el río  
> Cantamos porque el cruel no tiene nombre  
> Y en cambio tiene nombre su destino  
> .  
> Cantamos por el niño y porque todo  
> Y porque algún futuro y porque el pueblo  
> Cantamos porque los sobrevivientes  
> Y nuestros muertos quieren que cantemos  
> .  
> Cantamos porque el grito no es bastante  
> Y no es bastante el llanto ni la bronca  
> Cantamos porque creemos en la gente  
> Y porque venceremos la derrota  
> .  
> Cantamos porque el sol nos reconoce  
> Y porque el campo huele a primavera  
> Y porque en este tallo, en aquel fruto  
> Cada pregunta tiene su respuesta  
> .  
> Cantamos porque llueve sobre el surco  
> Y somos militantes de la vida  
> Y porque no podemos ni queremos  
> Dejar que la canción se haga ceniza


End file.
